15.1. Introduction/Motivation
Manipulating text/data is a big thing. If you don't believe me, look very carefully at what computers primarily do today. Word processing, “fill-out-form” Web pages, streams of information coming from a database dump, stock quote information, news feeds—the list goes on and on. Because we may not know the exact text or data which we have programmed our machines to process, it becomes advantageous to be able to express this text or data in patterns which a machine can recognize and take action upon.
If I were running an electronic mail (e-mail) archiving company, and you were one of my customers who requested all his or her e-mail sent and received last February, for example, it would be nice if I could set a computer ...
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